Bing, bang, boom: Is Microsoft’s search engine secretly for sale? – ZDNet (blog)

I first asked myself who would buy it. Facebook was the first and almost only one to come to mind. They will have capital, shortly, and they have a big user base who are communicating over their servers, so there’s a rich database to aggregate for advertising purposes, which Facebook already does. Facebook and Microsoft are buds, so they know how to make deals. Google and Facebook mutually consider the other as out to eat their lunch, so there’s that.

The real question is does Facebook obtain any value for putting Bing in its portfolio? If Bing was acquired by Google (watch for the flying pigs) would it slow Facebook down any? Who else would think that they could take Microsoft’s investment and build Bing into a profit center without sinking large amounts of capital of their own? Who thinks search and advertising is a core competency?

About then I came up with one other public Google-grouser, NewsCorp (Murdoch, Fox, etc.,)

The question then becomes, could they afford Bing. Is Microsoft in a mood to sharpen the pencils and do what it takes to get a Facebook or Newscorp into a nice, shiny Bing today?

Returning to Facebook. No, I don’t think it adds commensurate value, unless Microsoft took a bath on the asset, and I don’t think it’s a impediment to Facebook’s growth if someone else gets it.